


those three stupid words

by yourlocalheartbreaker



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aaron Hotchner Is A Good Dad, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hotch Struggles To Say I Love You, Hotch Whump, Hurt Aaron Hotchner, Hurt/Comfort, Sad Aaron Hotchner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28923672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlocalheartbreaker/pseuds/yourlocalheartbreaker
Summary: he opens his mouth and nothing comes out. it is like there is a barrier that prevents him from getting a single syllable, let alone three fully formed words out. it is like a lump in his throat that he should be strong enough to get past is getting bigger and bigger, stopping him from giving his son the one thing he needs."Jack," he whispers, but it is not enough and it never will be enough.(hotch can't say the words i love you, but jack needs to hear them)
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Jack Hotchner
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	those three stupid words

**Author's Note:**

> hi so i tried to use the present tense, not really sure how it went but i've not proofread of checked anything because it's been a difficult week and i wrote this in the space of a few hours so yeah.
> 
> trigger warnings: implied domestic abuse, hospitals, minor character deaths, mentions of periods, panic attacks, prescribed drugs, thoughts of death

Hotch is terrible at saying the words I love you because it’s almost like a curse. He remembers how they would joke about The Reid Effect meaning children and animals didn’t like their youngest agent, but The Hotchner Effect is tragedy the moment he got close enough to say those three words.

He told his mother he loved her and she never felt mercy until the day she died, even though her husband had been in the ground for years by that point.

He told Kate Joyner that he loved her- not in the way he loved Haley- but in the way one does when they feel like they have a guardian keeping them safe and she bled out in a hospital, afraid and alone.

He told Haley Brooks he would love her forever, because at the time forever seemed like nothing and now he visits her grave with a bouquet of flowers and the son he is terrified of hurting.

He told Emily Prentiss he loved her, in whatever way she would let him, because he thought it would be enough to make her stay, but it wasn’t because she went back to London and it was selfish of him to ask her to come back. She only came back when he had to leave.

He won’t say the words, but he will remember how every single member of his team- including Ashley Seaver and Jordan Todd- took their coffee and he will remember whose period is due when and what snacks they want. He remembers what audiobook to listen to with who and he remembers where to stand to make them comfortable. He could make their lunches and patch up old wounds with his eyes closed, but he can never say the words, and most of the time it’s enough. The team understand because they have to. 

But Jack Hotchner, for better or for worse, is not his father. Nor is he his mother. He is some weird combination of the two, for he has his father’s fury and anger at the world, but also his kind and gentle tendencies towards those that need it most. But he has his mother’s ability to spit harsh words that he doesn’t really mean and her desire to seek goodness in everyone has passed onto him. He has his mothers soft, blonde hair but his fathers’ brown eyes. Only his hair has not been darkened by the threat of a serial killer and his eyes do not hold the same sadness or guilt when he looks at old photos.

There are days where Jack will come down the stairs and find that his father has already made his breakfast. It’s usually on the days that he’s running late. He will come home from a trip with his friends’ to find the light in the hallway still on, because his father understands how suffocating he finds the dark. There will be macaroni and cheese from the box on the days he slams the apartment door and throws his bag onto his bed.

Jack knows his father loves him. He knows how hard it is for his dad to let him go out and do normal teenager things and he knows how painful it is to watch him grow up without Haley there. But because Hotch still thinks that Jack knows none of this, he never breathes a word. He knows that his father is one of the best men to exist, maybe in spite of, or maybe because of, everything he has been through.

But there are days where he tells his dad he loves him and does not get a response. Where he will shout the words as he runs out the door to get a lift from his friend- it’s what the cool kids do- and be met with silence. Where he’ll say them just before heading to his bedroom and get a smile.

He knows that his dad struggles to say the words and that they don’t mean everything, but it still hurts to not hear them. And he knows he’s being stupid, but he’s just a human. When something hurts, rational thought does not come into it. It just hurts.

He is sat on his bed, stupidly wondering whether he is the problem. He’s never heard his father say those three stupid words to anyone, not even Beth or Emily or Dave, but maybe once he did.

Hotch comes back from the grocery store and does not hear Jack come running down the stairs to see what sweet treat that he shouldn’t have got but still did because it’s a one time thing. 

He knows that George Foyet is dead. And so is Peter Lewis. They can’t hurt Jack. But being a profiler for so long taught him that no matter how many monsters you defeat or send to jail or kill, there are always more waiting to take their place. 

So he drops the bags on the kitchen counter, reaches for a gun that isn't there anymore and just hopes that the one good thing in his life hasn't been taken.

The door to Jack's room is open. Hotch nudges it slightly, letting out a sigh of relief when he sees his son sitting on his bed. The sigh of relief quickly becomes a noise of concern when he realises Jack is crying. Silently. The tears course down his cheek as though he's not even aware of their existence.

That's another thing about Jack Hotchner. He cries the same way his father does.

"Hey, hey, buddy, what's going on? What happened? Come on, talk to me, and we'll make everything right. Together. You know we can. We always do," he said, kneeling by his side.

Jack shakes his head. Aaron slowly counts to ten. 

"Buddy come on. Talk to me."

"Sometimes I wonder whether or not you love me," Jack blurts out.

Hotch recoils like he'd been hit, and in some ways, he has. In some ways, that single sentence does more to destroy him than every blow his father had ever rained upon him, every parent that had spat in his face about not knowing what it was like to lose a child, just because he could not wear his wedding ring for a moment longer could ever attempt. It hurts him more than Foyet's knife plunging in had.

"Buddy of course I do. You never need to worry about that. Did something happen to make you doubt that? Because I know sometimes I get angry, but I swear nothing will ever change."

Jack looks up, and Hotch feels like he's looking in a mirror. How many times had he looked at his own father with that same scared and desperate look? 

But Jack isn't scared. No, Jack had never been scared of his father, only for. Jack is tired and desperate and Hotch doesn't know what he is meant to do.

"Then how come you can never say the words? It's just three stupid words, yet somehow you never manage to actually say them. You dance around them and you say a hundred thousand other things but you never actually say it!"

Hotch is still on his knees. They're beginning to ache. He knows what he needs to say, but he just can't do it. He opens his mouth to say what his son needs to hear because there are no monsters hiding in the closet, waiting to strike. He opens his mouth because his son needs to know that he is the best thing Aaron has ever known. He opens his mouth and nothing comes out. It is like there is a barrier that prevents him from getting a single syllable, let alone three fully formed words out. 

It is like a lump in his throat that he should be strong enough to get past is getting bigger and bigger, stopping him from giving his son the one thing he needs.

"Jack," he whispers, but it is not enough and it never will be enough.

Jack let out a sob, running past his father and is out the door by the time Hotch reaches it.

He tries to breathe. He tries so, so hard to breathe because he needs to find Jack before a monster in the form of a charming smile or desperate person finds him and takes him away- not just for a few months- but forever. He tries to breathe, but just like the three stupid words he can never say, he can't. 

Instead he sobs, wondering why he is so broken. Why the universe had decided that Haley would be the one taken from Jack and not him. Why every single part of his body feels paralysed, stopping him from even reaching for his phone and dialling Jessica.

It passes a few minutes later, after he is able to ground himself and regulate his breathing, but it feels like hours. He's so exhausted that he just wants to curl up on the carpet and close his eyes, but he can't. He needs to find his son. 

Jack had left his phone in his jacket pocket, which means Aaron is able to track him. He contemplates going after him, but then he sees that he is going to the graveyard. They've been there so many times that they could both go with their eyes closed.

He paces around the apartment instead. It suffocates him only moments later, and he finds himself grabbing his car keys. He does not go to the graveyard. When he told Jessica in simple sentences what had happened, she told him to let Jack go. To only go after him if his location indicated danger.

He finds himself at the beach he'd dragged Jack to when he wouldn't stop moping about his first break-up. In fairness, the boy had been thirteen and it had seemed like the end of the world at the time, but because Hotch had never been that keen on the girl, he was secretly glad. 

Jack goes there shortly after Hotch leaves. Hotch drives back to the apartment, still feeling sick. When he gets in, it takes everything he has to head to the kitchen, and not his bedroom. 

He has no idea how long Jack has been sitting on that one for, but he's been gone for an hour. He'll be hungry when he gets back. Making dinner is something Hotch enjoys, but that day, it felt like another papercut on his heart.

Jack's pillbox was on the counter. Hotch doesn't want to invade his privacy, but he needs to know. He picks it up. The pills he was supposed to take that morning were still there. Yet another reason for him to resent himself. If he hadn't dashed out early to make a meeting he could have rescheduled, then him and Jack could have taken their pills together, and he wouldn't be sitting there wondering if Jack was going to suddenly end up in the E.R because his heart condition played up.

The sun had set, but Jack hadn't come home. Hotch was back to pacing the apartment. Jack's location showed that he was still at the beach. He hoped it wasn't just that his phone had fallen out of his jacket pocket when someone came from behind him. Jessica had promised to call the moment she heard anything.

There had been nothing, apart from a message reminding him to eat. He doesn't have the heart to tell her that if he does, it will all end up being flushed down the toilet.

Although he's pacing Jack's room, he left the hallway light on. He knows how suffocating Jack finds the dark, and in all the years they've been living in the apartment, neither of them has ever come home to darkness. He isn't about to start letting that happen now.

Jack's key turns in the lock when it's close to nine. Hotch does not move from his position because he's too much of a coward to have that confrontation now, and he wants to give Jack the chance to decide where he's going to go. Hotch hopes he goes to the kitchen. There's a bowl of mac and cheese- straight from the box, with extra cheese grated on- still warm for him to eat.

But Jack heads straight up the stairs and walks into his room, almost like he knows his dad will be there, waiting for his baby to come home safe.

Jack walks in, his eyes red and still watering, and finds his dad sat on the floor. In his arms is a bear. The only bear that Jack still has on his bed, because the rest of his toys are in the closet. But the one on his bed is special. It's from Build-A-Bear. Aaron and Jack made the trip for Jack's birthday. The first one they'd spent together without Haley. 

He still buys the thing accessories, even now.

Aaron looks up and drops the bear.Jack looks down. 

"I'm sorry," he says, because now that he's had time to think, he's not angry with his dad. He just feels guilty. So guilty for shouting at him because he knows his dad loves him and that he just has a slightly different way of showing it, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Aaron puts the bear down and walks over to his son. 

For one stupid moment, Jack thinks he's going to walk right past him, out the door, and never come back. Other people call his imagination a blessing and something beautiful. He calls it his fatal flaw.

Obviously, his dad does not walk out of the apartment. He doesn't even walk out of the bedroom. 

What he does do is this: he walks up to his son, looks into his eyes, and for the first time, Jack realises just how similar they are- the exact same shade of brown- and sees tears that haven't fallen yet. Aaron pulls his son in for a hug, and before Jack even knows what he's doing, he's falling apart in his dad's arms, sobs torn from him, breath coming in uneven pants. 

Aaron doesn't let go. He just holds his son close, hoping that he hasn't destroyed yet another person with his touch.

Eventually, Jack's sobs calm and he's able to breathe easily. Still, his father does not let go. He waits for his son to move out of his arms and sit down, before he joins him on the floor.

"Jack. I-" he starts, but his son cuts him off with a shake of his head.

"Don't. Please. Not now. I know you do, and I know I need to hear the words, but I can't hear them right now or else I will always associate them with this moment and I just- I can't."

Hotch can feel his son starting to panic, so he just nods. "There's mac and cheese in the kitchen if you're up for it. And if you're not, just eat and drink something before you go to sleep. I don't want you waking up in the middle of the night because you're hungry."

He stands, fully intending to leave his son be for the rest of the night.

"Dad?" Jack whispers.Hotch crouches down again. 

"Yeah buddy."

"Can I- can I just stay in your room tonight?"

No parenting manual or article teaches you what to do when your fifteen-year-old son asks if he can sleep in your room after he storms out because you're too afraid of what happened to everyone in your life to say those three words he needs more than anything.

But parenting manuals are nothing compared to the instincts of anyone that loves a child. And sometimes, you need to trust that you're doing the right thing. And in that moment, Aaron does.

"Sure kid," he says. And he doesn't feel like he's done the wrong thing.

Aaron watches his son sleep that night. Jack pretends he doesn't notice what his dad is doing, and in turn, Aaron pretends he doesn't know what Jack is doing.

The next day, he makes them both breakfast. Jack said he wanted to go to school when he woke up, and Hotch trusts his judgement, but made him promise to come home if at any point he felt unwell. He can cancel his classes for his son.

Just before Jack leaves, Hotch calls out for him. 

His son turns around, looking so much like his mother with those innocent eyes and slight smile, like he knows exactly what his father is about to say. For a moment, it's like Haley is really there with them and Hotch's breath catches slightly. He swallows the lump in throat and fights the barrier. 

"I love you," he says. It comes out too quickly, slightly choked and all the words blend into one, but he does it. He says it.

It makes Jack smile, slightly tearful himself. "I know. I love you too dad."

When the door closes behind him, Aaron leans against the counter for a moment, grounding himself. Everything will be fine, he tells himself. Jack will be fine.

And he is. He comes home in one piece, a wide smile on his face when he reveals the two cupcakes he got from the local bakery on the way home.

Aaron smiles at him because that is his son, who he loves with all his heart. 

And no matter how much he struggles to say those three little words, he will always try for him.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so i have no idea what this really is, let's just go with it.
> 
> follow me on tumblr at yourlocalheartbreaker!


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